Brandon Smith (Redwoodtwig)

Trees

The royalty of the plant kingdom are the trees. Rarely do we get to see a tree by itself, majestically standing tall in an open field or on a mountain side. Most of the time we notice individual leaves, branches and flowers, sometimes a wonderful shape in the trunk of a tree, where it solidly meets the ground, or soars into the sky, hopefully with some interesting clouds, but often with only pure blue sky in the background. Most of the trees you see here were found in central Missouri, in the center part of the United States of America.

Photographic "trick:" Cropping the image so the eyes of the subject are along the top or bottom third lines will make it appear as if the subject is always looking directly at the viewer. Try looking at this image in a reasonably large size from different angles and see how the eyes follow you.
Of course those aren't really eyes, and that isn't some kind of tree goblin coming out for a looksee. It's a fungus of some sort growing near where the trunk is splitting as it dies. Without spending a lot more time studying the tree, at this point I'll simply guess it lost out in the race to the canopy.

Nature trimming the tree. Should I hire a tree trimmer, or just let nature continue to work on this guy?

Pines and a spruce near the south border, south of workshop and storage shed. Took one load of mulch in the wagon to do six trees. two not shown died, and a couple of these I treated today are not very happy. If we don't get some rain soon, will need to water these again.

The way through the forest,
neither strait nor straight,
twists, turns, narrows and widens,
pauses here and there,
which way to go now?
Many are the ways,many are the destinations.
There is no way to say
which destination this way goes to.
Finding my way through the forest,
burdened with whatever I carry,
I may meet a traveler upon the way,
whose way through the forest
is the same as mine, for a while.
Brandon Smith, 2013

Alien vehicles, or maybe the aliens themselves, visiting the forest in central missouri. Actually, of course, these are refractions caused by pointing the lens toward the vicinity of the sun. This is a good lens, so it took some work to get a decent looking set of refractions. Or maybe there were aliens landing.

Finding a way through the forest, one needs to carry one's owns burdens. If one happens to meet another traveler going same direction, someone with whom mutual dreams exist, well, great. But keep in mind that all the other travelers on the way have their own goals and their own paths to follow. If those paths happen to intersect or even merge for a while, that's also fine. And when the paths lead different ways, smile till we meet again.
However, never stay long on a path that is clearly heading the wrong way for you. When you come upon a choice of two or more ways to go, examine each direction not only with your eyes and all your physical senses, but also pursue the logic of each path with your mind and practical common sense, for somewhere between your wildest imagination and your most practical realistic appraisal of the choices, therein lies your spirit, your soul, the part of you that is most true.

Snow on north east sides of trees on Walnut street by Health Connection

Trace left by a lightning strike. It was quite loud and orangish in color, but more invigorating than scary. It did make all three of us jump. I was in the study and saw it out the window, Anna and Sam were on the deck and also saw it.
This is the same tree that gently lowered a huge branch onto the workshop roof during an ice storm and left it there.